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Vania Leles’s showroom and office may be on Old Bond Street, right there with the big boys of luxury watches and jewellery, but her second-floor space seems refreshingly intimate by comparison. There has been no attempt at cordoning off a VIP area or creating a faux sitting-room feel, as her salon is by its very position above street level warm, feminine, and welcoming – very much like Leles herself.

The west-African born, London-based designer’s latest collection, a collaboration with the coloured gemstone company Gemfields, is a dramatic suite of emerald and diamond pieces with an intriguing narrative. At first glance, there’s something almost gothic about the jagged edges and points the stones culminate in, and the use of blackened gold to highlight the deep green tones. But the inspiration for this particular capsule collection comes from an intriguing place.

“I need a story to inspire me and give me ways of explaining my work,” says Leles. “And the story for this collection is this really incredible one about two African women who would eventually become part of the British aristocracy in the 19th century.”

On a wall in Leles’s office, a moodboard (which she laughingly confessed to having tidied up before we were allowed in) shows fascinating photographs and paintings of the two women – Dido Elizabeth Belle and Sarah Forbes Bonetta. The former was born into slavery as the daughter of an enslaved African woman and a British naval officer, before being raised in England by an earl and countess, while Bonetta was an orphaned member of a west African royal family who was essentially ‘gifted’ to Queen Victoria, who would eventually become her godmother.

But rather than being inspired by anything to do with slavery, it is the beautiful scalloped lace detail on the Victorian-era gowns these historical figures were photographed in that caught Leles’s eye. And so twin lines of white diamonds in white gold, and emeralds in blackened gold, undulate across cuffs, earrings, rings, and an exquisite open necklace from which are suspended two large pear-shaped emerald drops. The necklace is hinged at the back and opens to drape around the neck and dangle below the throat – it’s dramatic and bold, but the multitude of tiny emerald drops keeps it feminine, and even slightly organic looking.

Vania Leles really does have a way of finding inspiration from unusual places – I can’t wait to see what she does next.